Thursday, July 31, 2008

.....for my blog post, not my swim this morning. Coach had me down for 4200 yards. That is 24 yards short of the Ironman swim of 2.4 miles. Completed in 1 hour 20 minutes. That's including rest between intervals or sets, warm-up and cooldown. My goal on race day is to hold close to 1 hour on the swim. Lake Placid swim was 1:05. 800 yards today are race pace totaled 12:14, that's about 1:32 / 100 yards.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Not posting on my blog that's for sure. Work has had me traveling during the week and training has kept me busy, and tired, on the weekends. I'm posting this from the Las Vegas airport. No this wasn't a pleasure trip, business. Really.....needed to have a customer meeting. I'm not saying I didn't have fun. My sister-in-law was also in Vegas for work so we managed to have dinner together.

My Ironman training has been going extremely well lately. The weekends are kicking my ass but in a good way. I am getting stronger with each ride or run. I'm resting more so that my body can recover for the next round. This past weekend I did a hilly 4 hour ride followed by a 2 hour run. Aimee accompanied me on her bike during the run and it was a big help.

Oops....they are boarding the plane. I hope to be back soon with another post.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I consider all of you my friends. For some you stop by my blog, read my ramblings, endure long droughts of nothing, wait patiently for something to show up. I hope you manage to be entertained, learn something, take something away from my posts.

You are my friends. Without you I wouldn't be able to share my experiences and knowledge, especially over such a great forum that has a wide reach. Your blogs and posts provide me with entertainment and motivation. So I say thank you.

Friends should not be shy to ask friends for favors. You have waited since the beginning of the year, so today I finally post my declaration of intent for Ironman Wisconsin.

I sent the following message out to those in my Yahoo contacts:

CANCER SUCKS......IRONMAN IS COOL........

You want to be cool, right?

As some of you may already know I am currently training for Ironman Wisconsin at Madison, WI on September 7th. This 140.6 mile event will be my second Ironman. Similar to 2006 and my fund raising at Ironman USA, I have accepted the Janus Charity Challenge and have signed up to raise funds for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation of Northest Ohio.

I have chosen this charity again because of who they are and who they support. In 2007 Komen provided grant money to the Karen P Nakon Foundation, http://www.nakonfoundation.com/, whose Turkey Trot I've run the past two years. It is wonderful to see grant money staying local and helping organizations in your own city.

Hallie lost her battle with ovarian cancer earlier this year leaving behind her husband and two young children. Her courage and fighting attitude will provide me with the motivation I need for my training and race.

I'm keeping this request short but the attached document has much more detail about the fund raising program, including web links that would be useful.

Please consider helping me raise funds to fight breast cancer. My goal is $5000. Visit the web-sites below to help us all reach the finish line together. If you have any questions please let me know.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

I'm managing to keep my head above water between work, training and home life. Unfortunately haven't been able to post much. I finished my race report from Spirit of Morgantown so I hope to have that posted soon.

In the mean time I wanted to share a little incident I had on the road while riding my bike last night.

I was in the early stages of a 1.5 hour ride. I was approaching a stop sign where I would be making a left hand turn. I looked behind and saw I had enough room behind me to take possession of the lane and signal my turn. As I was signaling my left turn the driver behind me crossed the double yellow and passed me within 100 feet of the stop sign.

I lost it at that point. I moved towards the center line so I could pull up close to the rear bumper of the drivers side. I yelled at the guy that I had the right of way. When he didn't acknowledge my comment I back handed his rear fender and yelled at him again. He paused shortly and made his left hand turn.

I moved through the intersection quickly after him since there was no traffic coming. I saw the street he turned onto and very briefly thought about following him, then reconsidered. It wasn't worth the effort, time, or aggravation.

I regret I lost my cool and may have put some other cyclist at risk in the future by becoming the a$$hole the driver already was. The rest of my ride was uneventful and the remainder of drivers I encountered were patient at stop signs/lights and provided plenty of passing room.